Easy Ways to Cut Your Appetite

2 Easy Ways to Cut Your Appetite
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Here are two easy ways to feel full faster on less food: use a smaller fork and chew your food longer.
Turns out these two tactics have some science behind them. In a study, people who snacked on pudding ate less when they took small bites and savored the flavor for a while.

Savor the Flavor
Yep, the pudding snackers not only took little bites, but they let the bites roll around on their tongues for a full 9 seconds. The result? They ate much less pudding than the folks who took big bites and swallowed them in 3 seconds. So next time you get the munchies, try eating with less gusto . . . Watch this 1-minute video to learn how to pick exactly the right-size food portion.

Hunger-Busting 101
Related research suggests that the longer a particular food stays in your mouth, the more quickly your taste buds will tire of its flavor -- which in turn makes you want less of the food. Another vote for taking mini bites and eating slowly. Try these additional hunger-busting tools:
Dip your bread in oil. Olive oil may actually help you eat less and lose weight.
Here's a snack that ought to stop you from, well, snacking: whole-grain bread dipped in olive oil.

That's because olive oil is rich in a special appetite-controlling kind of fat. Wow, a fat that may help with weight control! That's something to write home about.
Olive oil contains oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat. Upon reaching the small intestine, oleic acid triggers the production of oleoylethanolamide (OEA), another fatty substance. OEA then finds its way to nerve endings that carry a hunger-curbing message to the brain. And that message is loud and clear: "Hey. Stop eating! You're full!!" Researchers are hoping that new appetite-suppressing drugs using OEA will be developed to reduce obesity.

Eat for the right reasons. Learn how to control the chemistry behind emotional eating.
Our ancestors ate to survive. They ate because they were hungry, or maybe to celebrate a victory over a warring tribe. Us? We eat because weâre angry, bored, stressed, frustrated, depressed, watching a movie, too busy, not busy enough, getting together with friends, or ticked off because the Lions lost.

Here are three tricks to steady your emotions for weight control.
And when eating is the result of an emotional reaction -- where we substitute chocolate for a conversation, ice cream for a relaxing bath, or chips for a punching bag -- it isnât as much about character as it is about chemistry.

Brain chemicals not only influence your emotions but also provide the foundation for why you eat at certain times. Here are a few examples:

â¢Norepinephrine: This is the caveman fight-or-flight chemical. Itâs what tells you to tangle with a saber-toothed tiger or hightail it to the safety of your hut.
â¢Serotonin: This is the James Brown of neurotransmitters. It makes you feel good (Hey!) and is a major target of antidepressants.
â¢Dopamine: This is the brainâs fun house. Itâs a pleasure and reward system and is particularly sensitive to addictions. Itâs also the one that helps you feel no pain.
â¢GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid): This one is the English Patient of amino acids. It makes you feel like a zombie and is one of the ways that anesthesia may work to reduce your responsiveness to the outside world.
â¢Nitric oxide: This is your meditation-like chemical. It helps calm you. This powerful neuropeptide is usually a very short-lived gas that also relaxes the blood vessels of the body.
Now, the real question is what do all these chemicals have to do with whether you snack on a Hershey bar or a plum? Read on.

The Brain Chemical/Food Relationship
Letâs use serotonin as an example of this relationship. Picture your brain as a small pinball machine. You have millions of neurotransmitters that are sending messages to and from one another. When your serotonin transmitters fire the signals, they send the message throughout your brain that you feel good; this message is strongest when that feel-good pinball is frenetically bouncing around in your brain, racking up tons of yeah-baby points along the way.

But when you lose the ball down the chute (that is, when cells in the brain take the serotonin and break it down), that love-the-world feeling youâve just been experiencing is lost. So what does your brain want to do? Put another quarter in the machine and get another ball. For many of us, the next ball comes in the form of foods that naturally (and quickly) make us feel good and counteract the drop in serotonin that weâre feeling.

An example? Sugar. A rush can come with a jolt of sugar. Sugar stimulates the release of serotonin. Insulin stimulates serotonin production in the brain, which, in turn, boosts your mood, makes you feel better, or masks the stress, pain, boredom, anger, or frustration that you may be feeling.

And serotonin is only one ball in play. You have all of these other chemicals fighting to send your appetite and cravings from bumper to bumper.

Knowing how your emotions can steer your desire to eat will help you resist your cravings and, ideally, avoid them altogether. Your goal: Keep your feel-good hormones level, so youâre in a steady state of satisfaction and never experience huge hormonal highs and lows that make you search for good-for-your-brain-but-bad-for-your-waist foods.

Here are three tricks to try:

1.Use foods to your advantage. All foods have different effects on your stomach, your blood, and your brain. Choose turkey to cut carb cravings. Turkey contains tryptophan, which increases serotonin to improve your mood and combat depression and helps you resist cravings for simple carbs. Choose salmon to curb blue moods. Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in certain fish (including salmon, canned tuna, halibut, and mahimahi), have long been known as brain boosters and cholesterol clearers, but theyâve also convincingly been shown to help with depression in pregnant women. Depression contributes to hedonistic and emotional eating.
2.Savor the flavor. If youâre going to eat something thatâs bad for you, enjoy it, savor it, roll it around in your mouth. We suggest taking a piece of dark (70% cocoa) chocolate and meditating -- as a healthy stress reliever and as a way to reward yourself with something sweet. Itâs OK to eat bad foods -- every once in a while.
3.Go to sleep. Getting enough sleep can help with appetite control. Thatâs because when your body doesnât get the 7 to 8 hours of sleep it needs every night to get rejuvenated, it has to find ways to compensate for neurons not secreting the normal amounts of serotonin or dopamine. It typically does that by craving sugary foods that will give you an immediate release of serotonin and dopamine.

Chomp on gum. Hereâs how it curbs afternoon snack attacks. You could crush that 3 p.m. cookie craving just by chewing a little of this: gum. Thatâs right. Chewing gum can really put the kibosh on your afternoon appetite.

People who chew either sweetened or sugar-free gum after lunch (please, choose sugar-free for your gumsâ sake) feel full longer, eat fewer afternoon snacks, and have fewer hunger pangs and fewer cravings for sweets than people who don't chew gum. (And, of course, people who chew sugar-free gum also have more teeth left to talk with.)

How does chomping gum suppress hunger? It's simple, at least in theory. When you eat, your taste buds are stimulated by food. But the more food you eat, the less you notice how good it tastes. That helps signal your brain that you're full, so cravings go away. Chewing gum may have the same effect -- but without all the calories!

Of course, eventually, you have to eat. Just reach for sensible meals, not all the Pop-Tarts in the package or all the Cheetos in the vending machine. Skipping meals increases cravings for sweet and salty foods (as in chocolate and chips) but not bitter -- and healthy -- ones (like broccoli, brussels sprouts, and other veggies).

Make the gum trick work even better by thinking about how much food youâve already eaten today. This little mind trick may nix cravings. Still think you want cookies? Grab a glass of water and drink it down; your thirst may be masquerading as hunger.

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